By Oluwatosin Maliki
In a move that has been met with criticism from lawmakers, Nigeria’s Security Chiefs have failed to appear before the House of Representatives for a sectoral debate scheduled for today, November 16th.
Quest Times gathered that the House of Representatives had scheduled the sectoral debate with the aim of debating issues of national importance.
The House had earlier sent the invations to the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hassan Abubakar, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla and the Inspector General of Police, Kayide Egbetokun, but none of them attended the meeting.
It was learnt that representatives were sent to attend on their behalf, as they were rejected by the House on the ground that the invitees should have appeared in person because of the issues involved.
Following this, Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, cited the constitutional order, saying section 88 and 89 of the constitution empowers the House to invite anybody to offer explanations on national issues.
Furthermore, he explained that when invited by the House, such persons are expected to honour such an invitation by sending their Chief Executives to the parliament, because the parliament is a grade one institution.
In addition, he noted that it has been the practice of the House over time not to accept representation from persons invited to brief parliament and answer questions from them.
However, he moved a motion asking the House to suspend the sectoral debate with the security chiefs until when their Chief Executives will appear to brief the House when answering their questions.
Hence, the motion of the Deputy Speaker was unanimously accepted by members who voted to suspend the debate.
Meanwhile, speaker of the House, Hon. Abbas Tajudeen told the delegation to report back to their principals that the House will not take representation.
The debate with the Security Chiefs has been rescheduled for Tuesday, November 21th, 2023.
Consequently, the plenary session was brought to an end, after the suspension of the debate, to make way for a robust engagement with the Security Chiefs.